Italian Style Beef Stuffed Peppers with Cauliflower Rice

Stuffed peppers will never go out of style, they’re a special kind of comfort food, but not in the sense of the heavy, stick to your ribs kind. These beef stuffed peppers are a whole meal contained in a colorful pepper vessel with Italian flavors throughout each bite.

They can be served for lunch or dinner with a nice green salad on the side to complete the meal.

I often find the colorful, sweet bell peppers on sale and when I do I always grab a bunch.

In preparing this dish you can either cut each pepper in half or keep them whole as I did here, it’s amazing how much stuffing you can fit into each one.

For this recipe I used a good quality, lean ground beef, 90 percent lean, 10 percent fat. In the past I’ve used Italian sausage featured in this post.

That’s what I like about stuffed peppers, they’re so versatile. You can use a favorite meat of your choice or even no meat at all. You can use a variety of different cheese and vegetable combinations as well as beans.

Also you can use cooked rice, white, brown, wild and even quinoa but I’m loving the lightness that riced cauliflower gives to the peppers, so that’s what I chose for this, plus it’s great if you’re watching carbs or on a keto diet.

Of course my beef stuffed peppers are made with Italian flavors both in and out, they can be prepared ahead of time, which is a good thing and if you happen to have leftovers they’re just as delicious heated up the next day!

I promise these will be a hit with your family, I stuck some artichoke hearts in mine, if you’re an artichoke lover put them in, if not you can even sub in some mushrooms, that would be delicious as well.

If someone you know needs a meal cooked for them, something they could easily heat up, this is the one to make and give to them.

Next time you see those sweet, colorful peppers displayed in the grocery store, grab a few and make this!

Italian Style Beef Stuffed Peppers with Cauliflower Rice

 

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Author: Marie

Ingredients

• 8 colored bell peppers, left whole, tops cut off with seeds and membranes removed inside. Dice up some of the tops to place into the filling as well for added color and taste
• 1 lb. lean ground beef, 90% lean 10% fat
• 1 -12oz. bag of frozen cauliflower rice, defrosted
• 1 -12 oz. bag frozen artichoke hearts, defrosted
• 1 -28 oz. can of whole San Marzano tomatoes, squished by hand leaving nice size chunks, 1 cup goes into the filling and the rest will be for the bottom of the baking dish, no need to cook it ahead of time
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 large garlic cloves, diced small
• a handful of both parsley and basil
• 1 cup of pecorino romano
• 2 cups of shredded mozzarella, 1½ cups to go inside filling and reserving the ½ to sprinkle on the tops
• olive oil

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 375F.
2. Reserve a cup of the squished tomatoes for the filling and put the rest onto the bottom of a 9x12 baking dish that has been sprayed with olive oil.
3. Place the 8 raw, cleaned peppers into the baking dish.
4. Brown the beef in a large skillet until you no longer see pink, then remove and drain on paper towel if need be.
5. Wipe out the pan and drizzle with olive oil and cook up the cauliflower rice until dry with no liquid in the "rice" doing the same with the artichoke hearts, doing one at a time if need be, set aside to cool.
6. Quickly saute the onion and garlic and chopped pepper tops as well.
7. When cool, transfer all the precooked ingredients into a large bowl, the beef, onions, garlic, chopped pepper tops, cauliflower rice and artichoke hearts ( chop the artichoke hearts up before adding).
8. Now add in your basil, parsley, romano cheeese and a 1- ½ cups of shredded mozzarella and also a cup of the squished san marzano tomatoes.
9. Gently mix everything together and add salt and pepper to taste.
10. Fill each raw pepper with the filling, packing it in.
11. Cover the pan tightly with foil and bake for 35 minutes.
12. Remove pan and foil, they should be nice and steamy.
13. Sprinkle remaining shredded mozzarella on each pepper, a little romano and some of the tomato juice from the bottom of the pan and a drizzle of olive oil on each one.
14. Bake into the oven for another 30 minutes or until the tip of a knife goes easily through the sides.
15. Enjoy!

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